After four days of football training,
camp, Fighting Scots to don pads today

Published: August 21, 2001 12:00AM

Although Monday's weather made it seem more like a practice before a midseason football game, it was actually The College of Wooster's fourth day of preseason training camp.

Today, the heavy lifting begins in earnest when the Scots don the pads for the first time this fall and start hitting. They'll have an intrasquad scrimmage this Saturday in preparation for an Aug. 31 scrimmage against Baldwin-Wallace.

After leading Wooster to a 6-4 record last season, coach Mike Schmitz welcomed nearly 120 players for his second season as Scots football coach. Over the next three weeks, he and staff will weed through the roster in anticipation of the 2001 season opener Sept. 8 against Kalamazoo College.

Much has changed in football over the years, including the purpose of training camp. Whereas in the past coaches might've used it to whip players into shape for the coming season, coaches now expect their players to come into camp ready to compete.

"We certainly don't like the idea of having to come to camp and get into shape," Schmitz said. "That's why we give our guys a very detailed summer workout manual and expect them to come to camp in good condition.

"The first full day we were here (last Thursday) we had testing for endurance, speed, quickness, agility and strength. We wanted to get an idea of what they did over the summer so we can get rolling."

Still, with more than 20 years in coaching, Schmitz considers himself more old school when it comes to running practices.

"Because I've been coaching as long as I have, I would probably fall on the side of the old-school, work ethic-type of practices," he said. "We certainly want to work hard but you also have to be prudent and gauge your team as to how hard you can go on a particular day. Being physical is part of the game, and you have to play the game physically so we believe in contact in practice. But that's another thing you have to gauge with injuries and possibly make adjustments."

Although it's early in training camp, Schmitz has already determined the two hottest position battles.

"Two positions where there's probably more competition than any other would probably be linebacker on defense and receiver on offense," Schmitz said. "We've got Chris Cabot and Darryl Simmons at wideout, but we're also getting good looks at guys like Ryan Hartschuh and Dan Steck. At linebacker, we've got good competition between guys like Kevin Rooker, Jeff Anderson, Drew Gittus, Julius Booker and Scott McManamon."

In addition to those two positions, Schmitz had pegged both lines as hot spots for competition during camp. However, the competition, and the Scots' roster, took a hit when a few players chose, for one reason or another, not to come back out for the team this fall. Among those were offensive linemen John Cafarelli and Adam Clark and defensive tackles John Currid and Adam Zann. The latter was being counted on heavily to ease the loss of last year's starters, Kevin Heintschel and Felix Catheline.

"Unfortunately, there were some kids that decided to not come back," Schmitz said. "Adam decided he didn't want to play and that was very disappointing for us. It really came as a shock to all of us. Adam is an outstanding player and someone who we were counting on on the defensive line."

"We lost two guys (Zann, Currid) who we felt had a chance to contribute, but on the other hand it gives some other players an opportunity. You don't really have the luxury to sit around and brood over it. I've got to coach the guys I've got here and we've got some great guys. We're moving forward and working hard."

Until they begin hitting today, the Scots have used the first few days of camp getting acclimated to the Scots' offensive and defensive schemes. Not that Schmitz and his staff have made any drastic changes from last season, but they never take anything for granted.

"We do have some different terminology this year, but we're doing many of the same things we did last year," he said. "Still, we always come into camp with the philosophy of not assuming anything. We really want to work just as hard teaching the veterans the system as we do the first-year players. We want to make sure we have a thorough knowledge of what we're doing, and that's what we've been doing the first four days."